The
African Times has Africa as its primary “press beat” - we report on Africa's
developments and those events and histories that other media in North America
at times bypass. We deem it a responsibility to our non-African readers, as
well as our readers in the African Diaspora and Africa to report, inform and
at times uncover items that are important in understanding Africa and her
people.

Our
pages, and now our websites, carry information , analysis, opinions and
updates to enrich and expand the knowledge base about Africa and as a famous
U.S. broadcaster, Walter Cronkite used to declare: “...events that alter and
illuminate our times”.

If
you would ask us “Tell me something about Africa” our editors most likely

would
say the following:

“Africa is large,
three times the size of the Continental United States. Total area is
11,668,598 square miles with a coastline of 16,100 miles. From the Americas
Africa is on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, for the Europeans she is
on the south side of the Mediterranean, and most of the Middle East is across
the Red Sea and Asia and Australia is across the Indian Ocean and the
Pacific.

“The equator cuts
Africa almost in half, North and South and because of that she has multitude
of climates from the Sahara Desert to the snows of Kilimanjaro and rain
forests to add to the mix.

“Africa is the oldest
of the seven continents and if you noticed we refer to Africa in the feminine
gender. Most people refer to Africa as “Mother Africa” and rightly so,
almost 99.99 DNA in everyone on Earth has the original from the people of the
Kalahari Desert in Southern Africa—wherever and whoever we are, we can all
trace our “people“ roots to Africa.

“Africa, since the 3
million years ago has gone through great amount of history, however much of
it is being “discovered” only now and much of what has been written in the
past is bogus.

“There are many
misconceptions about Africa. For instance more and more evidence has been
uncovered, at first suggesting and now more and more accepted that King
Abubakari II of Mali in 1311 authorized a flotilla of one thousand pirogues
(large canoes) across the “big river” we now call the Atlantic and more
evidence is showing up that many of these Royal Mariners made it to the
islands of the Caribbean, with descendents thought to be Garifuna, today
settled in Belize and Honduras.

“Our Travel Editor
did a research trip to Belize and her article “Belize and the Garifunas” was
published in the June 01-15, 1998 issue of The African Times, and has been
referred to in several doctoral thesis.

“Another typical
misconception is that the Portuguese were the “first to discover” Africa,
FALSE. The Chinese came there in 1415, almost 50 years earlier and it seems
almost circumvented the Continent. However one thing the Chinese did not do
is establish settlements and forts, as the Portuguese have done for the
single purpose of exploiting the Continent.

“In 1884-85 at the
Berlin Conference, Africa was divided up between the “leading “ nations of
Europe; England, France and Germany, each one taking what they thought was
the most economically beneficial to their own development. The one who
ultimately got the “lions’ share” was Belgium’s King Leopold II, who received
an area that today is DRC. His was a ruthless exploitation of Africa's
resources that set a cruel government system in place. Till today there are
reminders of his cruelty—ask someone who knows why in Brussels you can buy
chocolates in the shape of hands; you’ll be astonished and never eat another
one ever again!

AFRICA “Our Press Beat”

Africa, as known in 1595

Africa in 1808

Colonial possessions as of 1914

“Another interesting
historical point is the universally renown hymn “Amazing Grace” - the
author, Captain John Newton kept hearing the slaves his men captured for
transport to England sing the lilting melody that today is the “Amazing
Grace”. This took place in Calabar, now a modern city with a two thousand
year history, in the Cross River State on the boarder of Nigeria and
Cameroon.

“There is more; it is
worth to look beyond the “history” that is in general distribution as
authored by English and French writers, with much of it going back to Queen
Victoria’s time and find the TRUE and fascinating facts about Africa—an
extraordinary Continent. An excellent resource on the Internet is at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africa. and the September 2005 “Africa” special issue
of the National Geographic. Another valuable resource is “The History Atlas
of Africa” by Samuel Kasule, published by Macmillan in 1998.

“Today Africa is in a
flux. Most of today’s nations came into being during the independence period
of the 1960s and 1970s. Today 53 of them are members of the African Union
(AU) and moving closer to a more unified whole, similar to what the European
Union (EU) is becoming—with a Continental Parliament and possibly an overall
Presidency, i.e. President of Europe.

“Africa is becoming a
modern Continent, with close to 1 billion population, rapidly developing
middle-class, and ample natural resources the world needs for the next phase
of the global economic and industrial growth. This makes Africa investments
have a much better ROI, something to look into for business and investments.

The Africa, Inc. pages of The African Times bring you the business
and financial updates and happenings, together with the listings of the
Africa’s stock exchanges. And at times these make better reading than the
news from Wall Street.”

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